Eric Wattree

After President Obama took the oath of office, the Chairman of the Fed went to him and said, "If you don't do something by Monday, our economy is going to collapse."

With great interest, I recently watched the debate between columnist Stanley Crouch and percussionist James Mtume on the evolution of modern jazz. Crouch, the steadfast jazz purist, took the position that much of what is passing for jazz today is a corruption of the art form. Mtume said Crouch was out of touch with the new face of jazz.

Every time the American people look at Mitt Romney, they should get angry. He is the walking personification of the biggest scam ever perpetrated on America, "trickle down" economics.

"If gay is the new black, then black must have been the old gay . . . I don't really know what that means either . . . I support gay marriage, but it's mainly because I just don't care one way or the other." – Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

Maybe hell can freeze over because if someone had told me yesterday I would be sitting here defending Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, I would have assured them that such an occurrence would only take place the day after Adolf could go snowboarding through the pits of hell.

I was recently involved in a "discussion" regarding the prison industrial complex with Lydia, an intelligent young woman. I put discussion in quotes because when she used statistics on the black experience with the prison industrial complex relative to the rest of society, I talked over her.

During these dire times it is incumbent upon the black community to recognize, assess and correct the historic flaws in our mores that represent the self-hating and destructive remnants of our history of slavery. We are faced with such a moment.

It’s frightening how many Americans are willing to listen to a guy like Ron Paul. The Congressman is one of two things, either a typical demagogue or an unthinking ideologue. He specializes in combining fact with fiction by pointing out everything that’s wrong with all of the policies that are contrary to his agenda. He claims that his irresponsible solutions are a cure for all of the nation’s problems. His solutions are drawn from an outlandish philosophy, which, on its face, is a corruption of the U.S. Constitution and would constitute an exercise in national destruction.

It’s scary how easily the American people can be manipulated – to the point they find the deaths of entire families a hoot.

If anyone is left in America who can’t see that the Republican party is the enemy of the American middle class, they can look at who the GOP is putting forward to assume the highest office in this land.